Bizzaro twin?

Last night Jason was looking for my blog and ran across The Dana Files.  Reading her blog I got a little jealous because, well, it’s good.  What I wish mine would actually be.  You know if I had that type of talent and ablity with the written word.

Back in the saddle

I’m having a hard time coming up with a character for Spycraft.  It’s a combination of having not rolled my dice for so long and allowing that part of my creative side to be eaten up by better ways to organize my home.  Being beyond dead tired and in massive amounts of pain on a regular basis probably doesn’t help.

I’m going to have to crack open the old guide book and start playing with ideas.  As fun as that can be it can also eat into my already precious personal time.  The thing is that lately if I don’t feel like doing something I just won’t, no matter how enjoyable I might find the out come.  Wanna bake but out of flour, meh I’ll pass.  Wanna game but need a character?  I’ll deal with it later.

Compounding my general laziness is Kyle’s great mobility and attempts to climb up things.  Today he found the washing machine.  With his face.  He’s fine and the it actually helped get him to nap but still.  I think I scared the crap out of the telemarketer who called and wouldn’t let me off the phone without hanging up on him when I said “Where’s the baby?!” followed by a thump, a loud cry and “OMG OMG”.  Best.  Way.  Ever.  to get an annoying phone call over.

Sara Palin

I first heard of the Governor of Alaska when she was on CNN talking about drilling for oil.  I found her to be poised, funny, smart and well versed in the needs of her state.  It really intrigued me that here was a Conservative Republican women leading a state who was young, fairly pretty and had done a lot to piss off the status quo in her state party.  Needless to say I liked her.  A lot.

The mother of 5, her youngest is only a month younger than Kyle and also has DS, she didn’t go to ivy league schools, grooming herself for a life as a politician.  She’s been the mayor of a town, run a group to stop corruption and a Governor, all before she was 45.  Now she’s the VP slot on a Republican ticket.  As much as this might hurt in some ways, I’m actually starting to like the idea of President McCain even better.

I think it was a smart choice for McCain for more reasons than she’s a women.  Yes, she’s got a uterus and I’m sure that that was weighed when McCain was debating on her for a spot on the ticket.  Yes I’m sure that part of the reason he leaned to her was he was hoping it might help pick off some former Hillary supporters and also make him far more attractive to the security mom’s who helped re elect President Bush.  But to choose her solely for that reason would have been a very, very un wise choice.  And McCain may be a lot of things, but stupid isn’t always one of them.

Palin can help shore up the social Conservative base that’s been fidgety about electing him.  She’s pro-life, and lived that when she brought her youngest son into the world instead of aborting him.

Her anti corruption street cred isn’t bad either.  She took on members of her own party when trying to root out corruption in her state, going so far as to resign her position when she was ignored.  She’s also ended the bridge to nowhere.

She’s for oil drilling in a responsible and safe way.  To paraphrase what she told the interviewer from CNN, it’s her state’s oil and they should be the ones do decide, not DC or environmental groups that have no real steak in the state.

This brings me to her being a fiscal conservative.  As well as a states right one.  Issues close to my heart.

Watching her eldest son go to Iraq also helps deflect some of the Michael Moore like questions about when are you going to send your kid?  She has.  So, might I add has Cindy McCain.

She also allowed him to satisfy the skittish base while still allowing himself to paint a picture of him being a maverick politician.

She has problems, she’s doesn’t have a lot of foreign affairs experience.  Though I might add neither did Bush 41 when he was picked or Pres. Clinton.  It hurts the campaign using Sen Obama’s lack of experience, though it can be argued she has more.  But it also hurts Sen. Obama as well.  He can’t very well accuse her of not having experience when his resume is light too.  There is also the appearance that she, or someone in her office, attempted to get her BIL fired from his job as a state trooper, although the staffer who made the calls was suspended.

What I am enjoying most is the idea that the GOP is, maybe, moving away from the white, ivy league, old man picture.  That really isn’t the party in a lot of ways.  That old play book isn’t working anymore, and McCain realizes that.  Perhaps with this pick he can start to push Republicans to give up on that and step away from the safety of it.  We need to show case that we aren’t just a party of Christians, of straights, of men and of boring old people.  We have a base of young people who are becoming frustrated with not having much to get excited about, of candidates who don’t get our issues as more than an academic exercise.  There is a middle of Conservatives who aren’t in the party because of moral issues but because they want smaller government, less taxes and less government control.  And we have a fringe of people who are more worried about giving the Democrat’s control of our national security.
With her on the ticket McCain has gotten a lot of buzz, a good deal of his party more excited about the election and voting for him not just against Sen Obama and has guaranteed that this election day we will break at least one more glass cealing.

I’m a happy geek.

I really like Sara Palin as the VP pick.  I’ll take me a bit to get my thoughts together but I just had to say that when I heard this morning that the two front runners were not in evidence for being the pick and that it might be a women I was screaming in my head, let it be Sara Palin.

Somethings gnawing at me.

I’ve been watching the coverage of the Democratic National Convention.  Yesterday when I watched Sen. Clinton nominate Sen. Obama for President I got a little misty eyed with emotion.  He’s not my candidate and I won’t be voting for him in November.  But to watch a black man get his parties nomination for President, well it hit me.  Win or lose he will go down in history as will this election that saw a major party having a black man and a white women be their two front runners.  I was so proud of my country, that we are coming closer to fulfilling that promise we make to our children.  Anyone born here can become President.

As proud as I was, and still am, I’m increasingly uncomfortable with how Sen Obama has become more than a candidate to many.  At the DNC a film was produced by Steven Spielberg.  Sets built by the company that built the set for Britney Spears’ last tour.  Hollywood celebrities in photo ops.  A football stadium full of people in a rock concert like atmosphere.  The accusation that Sen. Obama had become a rock star or God like figure grates on me but watching this theater I can understand why the comparisons were made.

Sen. Obama is no longer a political figure.  He’s become mythical.  A politician who’s no longer a law maker but a dream maker on par with the pop stars we see in news rags.  It’s not about the politics, the change, or even the history.  It’s become about the PR, the feeling.

As I watched the crowd dance to “Born in the USA” I wondered how many of these people were there to actually support the candidate and how many were there to see a legend.

What pokes at me when I hear the crowds, the interviews with excited young people, with the chants and the cheers is this.  Legends always fall.  Legends are human, with human flaws and with human emotions.  And we Americans love nothing more than elevating public figures then ripping them apart again and again.

JFK was revered and now book after book is published outing all his affairs, drug use, illnesses, temper and marriage woes.   Historians have even begun to assess his Presidency out of the prism of his charisma and in the sharp light of history to less than glowing reviews.

The problem is I like Sen. Obama.  As a person I’ve only heard nice things said of him.  The interviews I’ve seen, both from him and those who know him, show a warm, down to earth guy who really thinks we can do more.  I don’t want him to run the crucible to be burned.  I honestly wish these rabid, adoring fan boys and girls would go away and remove the almost cult like feeling surrounding him.  I worry that if he wins the election he will be torn to pieces within his first two years in office when the inevitable wall of DC politics proves to be less breakable as he’d hoped.

I think the DNC is taking a calculated risk in perpetuating this star like atmosphere around him.  It could very well drive off voters who don’t want their nation run by someone who won an election based partly on a popularity contest, much like that of the prom king and queen of our high school years.  It could very well cement in the minds of many voters what the McCain camp is putting out in commercials and speeches, that Sen. Obama is a rock star, a pop star, a God like figure to many but that this is all he has to offer.

Something new

It occurred to me that things have been said in exasperation by me that are pretty funny/weird when taken out of context.  So I decided I should publish them on the web.  Find that here,  Not closing this down, just adding to the fun.

My breakdown

I left work with only the intention of getting my car emissions tested and re-registered for 2009.  I did not have any intention of stopping on the way home.  But the game store is on the way home.  And, well you see, to get in there coming from home is hard, you have to do a U turn on a busy street then a hard right into the parking lot.  On the way home from emissions though, it’s just right into the parking lot.  Easy Peasy.  So tempting.  And well, there was something I really wanted to get for Gabe (it’ll be in the mail soon Sarah) and the only place I could think to find it was at the nerd store.

So I stopped.  I never had the intention of purchasing anything other than the gift.  But something happens when I walk into a gaming shop.  The smell, the sights.  It’s like most women in a shoe store.   And, as normal, there was a pack of men and I was the sole women.  There is something about this that makes me happy.  I don’t know why.  Perhaps it’s because there is still the misguided misconception that if a women is in a gaming store she’s there to get something for her man.  In a fit of female gamer pride, the same pride that left me reaming out a geek guy at Best Buy for implying that women who played WoW could only play a priest, I had to stop and browse.

I’d sworne off you Vampire.  When WoD died then Vampire died for me.  I hated that a few of the old clans stuck around in some twisted bastard version of their former selves.  If you kill the line, kill the line.  I missed vampires with history and the weight of generations on their shoulders.  And Justin was gone.  Vampire was dead to me.

But something about the shiny cover of The Fall of the Camerilla cried to me.  I had to sniff it, see it, feel it.   I had to have it.

I don’t know what crazy over took me.  We have no plans to play any of VtR, in fact Jason’s settled on Spycraft.  If I got anything it should have been that.  Or shiney new purple dice.  Or even some KODT.  No, I got that.  Something in me can’t just walk away from Vampire, no matter how I try.

Gabe’s update

Little Gabe may go home on Saturday!  Given that his doctors were sure he wouldn’t survive off life support this is so unexpected I cried.  He’s awake, moving, ticklish, breast feeding like a champ and now regulating his own body temp!

There are a few worry points, they are still not sure the extent of, or even if, there will be permanent damage.  They probably won’t know that for a few years once he begins to develop more advanced motor and verbal skills.  They are also worried about his muscle tone and response.  But just the fact they think they can send him how in just over a week, that is God’s grace and love.

Holy….shit….

Yeah, he did that. At 5 months.

Holy crap, he’s almost got the standing thing down.  Guys, he can only sort of crawl. Yeah he moves, yes it’s a crawl but he’s slow and unsure most of the time.  He just got sitting up on his own on Tuesday.  What’s worse is that this photo isn’t even the full extent.  He actually had both feet under him like he was trying to figure out how to finish the job until he took a break.

I’m not ready to say good bye to my baby.

Gab

My friend Sara gave birth on the 13 to a son named Gabe.  He is on life support and most likely will not survive.